Dan Roth  0:03  
This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:06  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant research. 

George Kennedy  0:09  
And I'm George Kennedy from the Boston Globe and CarGurus.

Dan Roth  0:13  
 Well welcome George, you are automotive, bon vivant and all around

Sam Abuelsamid  0:20  
to Dan with the big words. 

George Kennedy  0:22  
Don't waste good words on me. Just come on. 

Dan Roth  0:25  
You're not the best.

George Kennedy  0:29  
But there's French so I like that. 

Dan Roth  0:30  
Yeah. So we're still jumping into the cars. So this week, Sam, you are you drove a couple of cars, the Veloster N and is what I'm really interested in. But you had also the Honda Civic touring so it sounds like it's been kind of a sporty time for you. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:46  
Yeah, well, the Civic touring You know, I've driven multiple civics before, including the one that resides in our garage on a daily basis. We have a 2017 civic cashback EX hatchback and

You know I am a big fan of the the current generation civic the 10th generation civic It is such a huge jump over the prior couple of generations. You know it not everybody likes the design. Personally I'm I'm fine with it I like it and and my wife certainly likes the hatchback which is why we bought it you know and the the touring you know, the Civic touring is the premium trim level of the of the Civic lineup aside from the type bar. You know, the, the one I was driving was the sedan with the 1.5 liter turbo and the CVT which, you know, is a nice combination. It's a great engine. You know, the the CVT is one of the better ones out there, I think. And you know, it's got great driving dynamics. And one of the nice things on the starting with the 2019 models is they finally replaced the infotech or the place replace the head unit that was in there when it launched. In 2016, so it no longer has the the touch, capacitive touch buttons for the volume and tuning and so on. They've now got actual physical, a physical

George Kennedy  2:14  
volume up. That's good capacitive touch once. Yeah, I was gonna ask if the one that you guys own personally, if it has a volume knob, it does

Sam Abuelsamid  2:23  
not have a volume knob, but it does have the volume rocker on the steering wheel spoke on the left spoke of the steering wheel. So that's what's it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what that's what we typically use is the one on the steering wheel. So

George Kennedy  2:34  
you get to control the volume. That's, that's Yes. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:39  
Well, actually, I mean, it's my wife's car. I mean, she's the one that primarily drives it. I

George Kennedy  2:44  
so I'll be I'll be I'll be a little more open about the driver gets to control the volume for Yes,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:50  
correct. Yeah. And you know, in the touring, you get leather, leather seating and leather covers steering wheel and all that stuff, which is nice. You know, we ours. Ours is an ER It has the class seating which is also really nice you know it's comfortable and grippy you know the leather seats are great Honda always makes really comfortable seats really supportive seats which you know I've always liked and you know it's just a generally fun car to drive and it's fuel efficient to

Dan Roth  3:19  
yeah that's why I say it's been been sporty You know, there's no big wing on the back there's no you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  3:28  
just drop the type bar engine into that. Yeah, you'd be talking you probably would just

George Kennedy  3:34  
it's funny because that's like not outside of the realm of possibility considering like past versions of the cord coop with the six speed manual and then the six like, it's been done in the past where they've done high feature engines and kind of comfortable trims. I like this term because when you talk about like, what's affordable for people these days what this is like a gonna be what a $25,000 car.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:58  
This one This was pretty much loaded with Just about everything available it came to like 28 and change. One we have one we have this 24 you know at but you know you can you can get a really nicely equipped one for 2425 grand you know, ours you know that was 24,000 it has some roof it has the Driver Assist package, you know with adaptive cruise control and Lane Keeping Assist and all that stuff. So, you know, for even even for that 24 $25,000 price, you know, basically if you if you can live without the leather seating, and a few other premium trim options. Yeah 25 is absolutely doable.

George Kennedy  4:38  
So the genius about that car is you know, we talked about what's affordable, what's aspirational if you're a young professional looking for a first car, it's you know, the Civic is so good in this space and that it's so spacious for a compact car. It almost sort of breaks the definition of a compact because it's that I don't know if you felt it was that spacious inside but like you're somebody who's looking for reliable, comfortable daily transportation, there's no incentive for you, unless you have kids that need to, you know, either the backseat to go up market to the Accord, the Civic, you know, well, you know, a well option trim like this should suffice.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:17  
Right and you know, something we've talked about before and I've written about in the past is that, you know, over time, you know, all you know, pretty much any nameplate you can you can find, you know, with each succeeding generation usually gets bigger, you know, so a civic today, you know, is, is larger than an accord was, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. Absolutely. And even even the fit today, or even even going back to the first generation fit a decade ago, was larger than the first generation accord was 2030 years ago, or 40 years ago, whenever it came up 40 years ago.

Dan Roth  5:53  
40 years ago.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:54  
Yeah. So I mean even even Even a fit, you know, is actually a shockingly roomy car for for adults because yeah, I mean it's it remains my favorite small car you know, it's it's the one that I always when somebody is looking for a small car, you know like a B segment car, the fit is always the one I recommend.

George Kennedy  6:18  
Right? And what's funny is like I do this, and I'm sure you guys do the same thing when family members or friends try and ask you for car advice. You do this, like choose your own adventure. First of all, you don't say that car is terrible, because if they're asking your opinion, it means they probably already bought it. They bought it right. Exactly right. But But when it comes to like the fit, so I do this, like Choose Your Own Adventure like mine, I'm like, Okay, I'm in New England, there's a 99% chance they actually got a cross Trekker a forester. So let's figure out they did that if it didn't do that with the next most usable vehicle and that's the fit. And then

Unknown Speaker  6:50  
just don't listen anyway. Thanks. You know, Oh, God. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  6:53  
I mean, I was.

Dan Roth  6:53  
I was telling someone like Oh, if you'd like sort of quirky cars hatchbacks I recommend the Toyota ch artists And then next time they mentioned I would you do that because it's fine cuz he knows that

Sam Abuelsamid  7:05  
nobody's gonna listen to all his suggestions anyway that's

George Kennedy  7:07  
that is true

Sam Abuelsamid  7:10  
that they asked that they are when people ask their more often than not they're looking for affirmation of what they've already decided, right?

George Kennedy  7:19  
Seinfeld where they're looking across the street at the lady like candy herself. Like, yeah, I got in the space shuttle I'm going to Mars. Okay pack a good bag. Well yeah, no one's listening.

Dan Roth  7:36  
The answer I got back was like, oh, what did you get? I got a mini

here's Okay, I

George Kennedy  7:41  
said goodbye. No, because like, right think about like, what's quirky which is like, versus what's like feigned quirky, and like the mini covers a lot of those bases. The car is funny because the car was i'm not mistaken was supposed to be a Cylon. Before they fold that up. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:57  
They originally showed it as a concept. It was in fact, the size.

George Kennedy  8:00  
Right and but then what's cool about that car is like and I know I just bagged on it but like it corners in a brace really well,

Dan Roth  8:08  
this is what I was saying I can drive zero muscle zero muscle, it drives surprisingly, and not just pleasant. It's like surprisingly satisfying, it has no power and it has a CVT. It's like a modern mg. It's it's fine and so I just I liked I liked you know, it's it's got some some little things to delight your design sense. And other than that it's a Toyota so you know, trying to think

George Kennedy  8:31  
back we did a we did a CarGurus video on it like last fall and there were some things I bagged on it. Like, I feel like they may have done some very Mitsubishi ish interior things. Like Syria is not good. Yeah, I mean, the controls like you guys want to talk about like half tick and not have take like there were some things that we're doing that are not good and they need it's in desperate need of a interior refresh.

Dan Roth  8:54  
Well, Tony's gonna fix all that stuff when they roll out. What is it? Is it a CarPlay or Android out of the road? Out

Unknown Speaker  9:02  
Camry Tacoma all have car played as of this year, I think right? Yeah. And actually some of them also have Android Auto

Sam Abuelsamid  9:07  
now. So they're they're increasingly adding Android Auto to the 2020 models.

Dan Roth  9:13  
I have a I have a funny story about CarPlay which I will hold for a little while because I also want to know now that you've done this sort of economy car thing know this Civic Tour and always feels a little sporty every Honda has that like it's got a little sport bike in it somewhere.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:28  
Well, and particularly the current generation have more of that, you know, they they seem to have lost that for a while but they got it back with the current generation.

Dan Roth  9:37  
Yeah, so how does it right I guess it doesn't really need to stack up but But sir, you stepped out of that and you got in the velociter n which is getting raves from everyone. I haven't driven it yet. But what's your take on that? I I like it a

Sam Abuelsamid  9:51  
lot. You know, it's you know, it's been described in some places as the the poor man's type bar, which to some degree, it is.

George Kennedy  10:00  
That's not too far off. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:02  
yeah, I mean, you know, I really liked the current generation velociter. And the, you know, the end is the first of the these n branded performance models from Hyundai and they're going to be adding a bunch more on some of the other model lines over the next couple of years. So, you know, the end branding for Hyundai, you know, in this case means you get two liter turbo with 250 horsepower or 275. If you get the the performance package that remains front wheel drive. It's got dynamically adjustable dampers. You know, there's a electronic limited slip differential on the front. It actually has pretty decent steering feel, which is surprising.

Dan Roth  10:46  
Hyundai too, right. Yeah, that was always the thing where they'd have like, they'd be 97% they're just like all the pieces are here. The power trains good but it just the steering system and the controls don't work together as harmoniously as they should. So that sounds like

Sam Abuelsamid  11:02  
a laaser and that it all works together really well. You know from a from a design perspective, you know, if you like that sort of mini shooting break style, you know, it works well and it's actually practical. You know, the backseat is you know, you can actually have a couple of adults in there although it is awkward for the person who's going to sit behind the driver because it's a three door so there's no was

George Kennedy  11:24  
that crazy door setup? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  11:26  
it has the crazy door setup, which means you got to slide all the way across and it's set up as a four seater. So there's finish the homebuilders in in between the two rear seats, so you gotta slide over the little hump. But it's not so bad.

George Kennedy  11:40  
They should have gone like spy on IQ with it won't be offset seeds, right?

Dan Roth  11:48  
anything really sad IQ which is pronounced by the way,

Unknown Speaker  11:52  
oh, I'm not doing that.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:56  
I drove the velociter and from from My home near and Arbor to Pittsburgh last weekend to speak at a conference and then drove back in. And, you know, so put about 600 miles on this thing. And you know, it was a lot of fun to drive. And you know, for it, you know, it's got multiple different drive modes, you know, so you got normal and Eco, when you're driving, you know, for going on a long highway drive, I just kept it in either normal or Eco mode. Because there's also a multi multi mode exhaust system on there, when you put it in sport or an end mode, it gets considerably louder, which, you know, if you're going to be behind the wheel for, you know, four or five hours, you probably don't want to be dealing with that the whole way. But, you know, once it's time to have some fun, you know, we put it in edit mode, you know, you get some of that, you know that you know the little backfire, you know, when you're shifting, you know, it sounds fun and it is really fun to drive. The and you know, you can also feel a distinct difference in especially in the suspension when you should When you switch it over to end mode, the dampers get substantially firmer. There's some speed bumps in my neighborhood here. When you drive over them in normal mode, it's pretty It's fine. It's it's, it's quite acceptable. The ride quality is right quality is good even though you know, it's on these skinny little, you know, tires with about a quarter of an inch of sidewall but then as soon as you put it into n n mode, you know, it becomes like a rock you know, I mean it's it's be great, you know, if you're on a smooth curvy road, but you know, if you're hitting bumps and not so much, well, you need to slow down. Yeah.

George Kennedy  13:38  
I just want to hear that they actually have like really discernible modes because there are a lot of cars that

Sam Abuelsamid  13:44  
wallets but there's not really any difference. Feel the difference.

George Kennedy  13:49  
So I do have two questions. One was this car parallely robin's egg blue has the sort of evocative golf slippery Yeah, for sure. And to, just to use the analogy for em, because I'm still trying to get a read on, like, what M is gonna end is, excuse me, n is gonna mean for Hyundai. Is this like, m to 35? I or m two, as opposed to the rest of Tuesday, I

Sam Abuelsamid  14:17  
would say more empty 35 I,

George Kennedy  14:19  
okay. And I think that's as far as I'm gonna go.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:22  
Yeah, I mean for that brand. I mean, someday, who knows, maybe they'll do something that's more empty. Right, but I don't, you know, I don't think the brand is quite ready for that yet. Right? You know that that performance blue collar, that pale blue collar, as you mentioned, you know, that is the signature color for the end brand. And so when you get when you get any of the end brand, or any of the end models, you know, you'll have things like matching seat belts in that same color. So regardless of what the exterior color is, you'll get those blue seat belts. There's blue accents in the interior, you know, and it looks pretty cool, you know, blue contrast stitching on the steering wheel, and the mode buttons on the steering wheel are also in that same shade of blue. So

George Kennedy  15:04  
I am a sucker for those things like those, something like that where there's differentiating it like, you know, if you're picking a color or you're doing go x and things. I'm just a stupid sucker for those things. I hate that I am but

Dan Roth  15:16  
exactly. The detailing is really nice. I'm looking at it now on the website, and that's the thing that stands out is how, how thoughtfully they've made it feel special because it is a special model. And so you know, like i think that's that's warranted. Did the one you show they they're available in manual? Did you have a manual?

Sam Abuelsamid  15:36  
Oh, yes, it was a manual. And it has there's, you can switch on rev matching in there, which works really well. What else? Oh, they you know, that kind of couple of details about it. You know, the interior. The interior materials are all hard plastics. There's no soft touch materials in there. Which you know some people might not care for but you know you also got to keep in mind where this thing starts at 27 for which is a good $10,000 less than a type bar you know it's not quite as quick as a type bar but it's pretty damn close and you know for for $10,000 I could live with the hard plastics the The only other thing that was kind of a pain for me the the seats You know, they're manually adjustable seats and they're limited pretty much to just height for aft and seat back angle. So there's no lumbar adjustment and after like four and a half hours in the car you know, I could have used a little bit more lumbar support, but you know, that's just me it's the shape of my back I guess. You know, most people will probably be fine with it. Other than that, the rest of it is great, you know, and I like that. You know, the thing that the design things that they did with it like the the spoiler on top of the rear hatch is a lot more subtle than a type bar spoiler. Yeah, right. Yeah, the things that they've done like the red accents on the rocker panels and on the front facia.

George Kennedy  17:04  
I love that. Really? Yeah. Well, the nice thing is at least they can, you know, deliver on the the image of that as opposed to like, Hey, I got a Subaru Forester turbo sport thing that has the same little pinstriping saddle as the little you know, whatever engine What, what, so I drove the turbo last fall. And what's interesting is, I think, you know, you mentioned the manual seats I think that's a bit of a de content thing compared to some of the other trims if I'm not mistaken, I'll you can get ours.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:35  
So too. Yeah, I think on the like, if you get the the regular velociter like the ultimate trim, right, right. And you do get some of those things. So I think, you know, they were, they're focused here you know, on trying to provide the most performance the most bang for the buck.

George Kennedy  17:52  
The the jiki to Rs method would take everything off and add more to the price. More to put it back

Unknown Speaker  17:59  
on. Well,

George Kennedy  18:00  
so what's funny is like if you take all that stuff away, and you look at like a turbo ultimate like you described, that's compared to the gen one velociter. To this, it's the same silhouette, but it's a far more conventional car in a lot of very subtle ways. So, if you look at the center console of the gen one, it looks like a mini cooper, like a candy machine level center console. This looks like it could be the center console on a sonata. And a lot of the controls are more conventional. They realized, like, okay, we can make an unconventional car without everything being weird, right? Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:34  
Yeah, it's probably cheaper. It's unconventional, but still very usable.

George Kennedy  18:38  
Right? Absolutely. It's an unconventional platform or silhouette or formula. But the the day to day usability things have become far more mainstream, and I'm always in favor of that.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:49  
Yeah. And I'm just looking at the prices here that so the velociter turbo ultimate actually starts at 28 little over 28,000. So the the end is cheaper than the Turbo ultimate. So it's, you know, it's a relative bargain performance machine.

Unknown Speaker  19:05  
So, and

Sam Abuelsamid  19:07  
there's no torque steer. Okay.

Dan Roth  19:10  
So velocity versus our benchmark GTI. How does it How does it shake out?

Unknown Speaker  19:18  
Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  19:19  
Yeah, I think the GTI is probably going to be more expensive.

Unknown Speaker  19:23  
And much show,

Sam Abuelsamid  19:25  
I think the the velocity and the velocity is going to be quicker. But the GTI is going to have a nicer interior. As

George Kennedy  19:34  
right. It's more conventional. I feel like last year with like Hyundai, what did then go Wait a minute, they have a quirky offbeat car, but they're using an extremely proven conventional platform and do it. Let's do a little bit more mainstream again. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  19:47  
Yeah. So I think you know, if what you want is something that has a little more premium feel to it. Then actually, the GTI starts at 27 six, so it's almost exactly the same starting price, but the GTI is Going to have a more premium feeling cabin, but it's not going to be as quick. So, if you want, if you want to get a little more performance, you know, at the expense of, you know, some of those materials, you go for the velociter. And, you know, and and also, you know, if you want something that looks different, you know, the Golf GTI, for better or worse, looks like a golf, you will all you will instantly recognize it as a golf. Right. Yeah, and that's both good and bad. And there, you know, there's that shape that's been there for, you know, almost 40 years now. And it will, you know, it'll continue to be there for the foreseeable future,

Dan Roth  20:38  
at least so I can manage to maybe not box themselves into a box

and get it like a, you know, high performance shoe instead.

George Kennedy  20:48  
What's funny about it is from a styling standpoint, and with the performance level, like it's less of a GTI cross shop and maybe you know, listeners or commenters could could weigh in like it More of a wr x vs velociter hourish

Sam Abuelsamid  21:04  
Yeah, probably I would say that's probably a better comparison.

George Kennedy  21:09  
Who do you see somebody vaping in first?

Dan Roth  21:14  
Listen, you don't do you don't want to vape you just

Unknown Speaker  21:17  
brought to you by Monster Energy Drink

Dan Roth  21:18  
seizes you're gonna get sued.

block all that out of the way you know what, like, I think it's actually sets up a really nice transition because while Sam was driving the velociter and I had the new super legacy, so the 2020 legacy and it's it and I know you had a two journey so I will say that overall. It's a really solid update. It feels really good to drive. It's great on the road. It's a really good size. It's the 2.5 liter FA engine, so it's not all that powerful. Works. Okay. vt but it really like I was like I could really go for a turbo here. Although the week before I hadn't which they

George Kennedy  22:05  
offer.

Dan Roth  22:06  
Yeah, they do. And the week before I had an ascent and I felt like that was actually kind of jumpy and crappy and like less Not, not.

George Kennedy  22:15  
The Subarus and the ascent engine is the same as the high feature engine in the legacy is that correct? I think so.

Dan Roth  22:21  
It's the 2.4 liter turbo so it gets a little bit ordinates you know, it's got the turbo on it, but it just like the throttle response at that one felt like too much. So this one while it's a little down on power, it's not it's not exactly slow. It's just so freakin fast. And you know, it's fine to get 30 miles so the guy had a really hard time getting the tank empty and trover this

George Kennedy  22:46  
new tried. Well, yeah, when he is like, you're right. So that is the base engine and like it's enough and when you want to kick you know, kick your heels into it. It gets there but it makes a lot of noise. Yeah, definitely.

Dan Roth  22:59  
Something to see Like talks about they're like, Oh, it's smooth and I'm like, Yeah, okay, fine.

George Kennedy  23:03  
You gotta wait who made who made who made a smooth boxer engine not you guys.

Dan Roth  23:09  
Well, so the layout it doesn't have the rocking or the vertical motion that an inline four is just gonna have there's no way you can like get

George Kennedy  23:17  
around there but there are different ways that people like reduce NVH that Yeah, you know,

Dan Roth  23:22  
that's that's the weird thing it's like they've got this inherently smoother engine that they make it like sound kind of funny.

They let all that noise come through the firewall

George Kennedy  23:33  
which some people do on purpose by the way when when the new w RS came out and they had even rockers like yeah people were going to modding them so that they had the uneven so in Canada where rubber Berber burst you know what that's like the basically the exhaust version of the people who leave or add exhaust the packing strips on their srg chargers right and it's it's fine like whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:57  
Like the one down the down the block from my house.

George Kennedy  23:59  
Okay. Purple yet because the new ones are purple.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:03  
Now this one is like dark gray and black

George Kennedy  24:07  
no I mean the strips oh

Sam Abuelsamid  24:09  
no no they're yellow yeah so

George Kennedy  24:11  
so here's the crazy thing so we heard that the new packing scripts not to go off subject but the new packing scripts are going to be purple and I no joke I was in Newport last weekend for the Newport Concord elegance and I saw an SRT challenger come down the main main drag there and you could see where it was originally yellow and somebody like painted or taped over with purple people are adding these things on after for cars that don't that they don't belong to. And it's blowing my mind.

Unknown Speaker  24:41  
No, it's it's a you know what?

Sam Abuelsamid  24:43  
You own the car for whatever you want on it. Who cares?

George Kennedy  24:50  
Well as Archie even said that like the the pebbles are going to get caught up underneath the tape and like actually scraping. I like

Dan Roth  24:59  
your Remember the 80s and early 90s? And then you're not old enough. So back then everybody would put the

Sam Abuelsamid  25:08  
sensor

Dan Roth  25:11  
everybody would put the bras on their car, right? The

Unknown Speaker  25:13  
car neckties,

Dan Roth  25:14  
What's your point? Yeah, so you'd get the the like, fake leather thing to cover the front of your 911 Super gorilla target, whatever

Unknown Speaker  25:22  
you're dying to for Yeah, your coke machine.

Dan Roth  25:25  
And

the the idea that it's going to protect the paint is actually backward because you put this now this piece of vinyl there that traps water and heat and stuff underneath it. So it actually like causes damage to the paint and scratches it and because the paint that's underneath it isn't getting the UV guess what all the paint on the car now sort of

George Kennedy  25:47  
shaping this color? Yeah. So I will say this as a Jeep guy. And I will be a cop to the fact that like the automotive enthusiast community is a double edged sword. I love that people care. But like, misguided enthusiasm can lead to some weird stuff. And I don't care wanna like, I don't want to say I know. Yeah, I don't want to shame some folks but it's like, same time it's like there's a level of a modicum of restraint and taste that might go into any of this stuff and I

Sam Abuelsamid  26:17  
got into dizzy ism enthusiasm is hardly unique to the automotive sector. I mean, yes, look

Unknown Speaker  26:24  
everywhere.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:25  
Yes.

George Kennedy  26:27  
You can take off the yellow strips.

Dan Roth  26:30  
So back to the legacy.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:34  
Oh, before before you continue with that one. One other note about you mentioned the, you know, the felt, you know, being able to run a long distance on a tank in the legacy. One issue with the velociter the gas tank is on the small side. It's only a 13 gallon tank. And so you don't get that much range out of

Dan Roth  26:51  
it. Yeah, and it says it gets up to 29 miles per gallon highway so probably was getting like 24 for you

Sam Abuelsamid  26:56  
know, I got about 27

Dan Roth  26:58  
that's that's better than I thought it was gonna be You have a lighter foot? Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  27:02  
no, I was I was driving through Ohio and trying to avoid the state troopers.

Dan Roth  27:06  
Yeah. He said.

George Kennedy  27:09  
Well, Dan, I don't know too much more time to join you guys. So I did want to touch on one thing about the legacy. So all right, so a couple of quick things. I love the I love the chassis dynamics, I think it handles really well. It's really practical, like it's more than just a four door Outback. It's got a really big backseat and it's got a decent size trunk and all that stuff. The center console and the big portrait orientation. 11.6 inch touchscreen.

Dan Roth  27:37  
That's what I was going to talk about too, because I so I hate them.

George Kennedy  27:40  
Let me just get through a couple things. One, if this was any other brand, I'd be like fine. It's a sign of the times, but it's Subaru, and in my mind, as a New Englander Subaru is like a pillar of pragmatism, practicality. The old ways of the good ways, like their interiors were drab as hell and people love them for it. Like that they could beat on their interiors. They're full of plastic and you could throw applesauce at everything you can wash it off. That's good stuff. Right? And even though it's a touchscreen, fine whatever it's you know, you got your hard controls for the climate controls and radio. The only controls don't have

Dan Roth  28:17  
Oh, that's what you're saying like now you're the old one,

George Kennedy  28:19  
the old ones right? This new thing is are like a violation of what I interpret as like the the core tenets of what makes a good Subaru. A Subaru is something that you can beat on and it will say thank you, I will have some more right from it. Actually, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  28:33  
a violation of the core tenants that makes any vehicle a good vehicle. George but I am I am the global leader of the band, The touchscreens from cars.

George Kennedy  28:43  
I'm not that far. I like I like tech when it's used. Well. I think that the American automakers do a good job of saying certain things are going to be touchscreen, some things are going to always stay as hard controls. So like, you know, Graham 1500 dollars stay Most of everything else is radio at NAB and CarPlay is up in touch. But as our good friend Craig Fitzgerald always says, The 6am dark and cold controls if you're going out to your garage and the light went out, can I use the radio and the climate controls and the the heat the deep roster without looking and those are all things that you should be able to hit hit hit. Yeah, biggest sin of all of this touchscreen system is so all cars have stopped start systems and anybody that reviews cars little times typically unless they're john vocal over a green car reports are canceling out the stop start system. So that doesn't like you know, we can't find it.

Dan Roth  29:37  
I leave it running as well.

George Kennedy  29:39  
We've been on all you masochist.

Dan Roth  29:42  
But it's you know, here's the thing and i think i this this will come back to what you're saying. I pair that stop start with the auto hope that everybody's doing now. But the the legacy would shut auto hold off on every restart. So you'd have to go in and it's like three steps or two steps.

George Kennedy  29:58  
Right? Right. We told me the same thing. What's the routine auto stop, start,

Dan Roth  30:02  
stop start shut the engine on and off. avh Auto vehicle hold actually keeps keeps the brakes on

Sam Abuelsamid  30:10  
you when you apply the brakes and to take your foot off the brake pedal it won't roll back till

Dan Roth  30:14  
Yeah, but it's not even it's not even just on a hill. It's like at a stoplight, you just press the brakes, turning that on runs off auto stop start you just break my brain. No, no, it keeps auto stop start on. You can you can set them individually but it will hold like so you come up to a stoplight and you press it and avh comes on you can then take your foot off the brake and just sit there and the car will hold itself on the brakes and then it'll release the brakes when you

George Kennedy  30:36  
hit the gas. Here's the problem. There's a problem. So for a lot of cars, the stop start is pretty seamless because the car the engine themselves are smooth. It is not

Dan Roth  30:45  
about legacy.

George Kennedy  30:46  
Exactly. So so if you want to cancel that in the past in 99% of cars that have this is just a button on the dash or button next to the shifter and you just hit it done. This is too many Deep okay. And normally that if I want to change the temperature for the world there's hard buttons for the temp. But if I want to change like the direction of the

Dan Roth  31:09  
fan, there is no three menu presses and it comes up and you got it you got to be quick. So a it comes up and you have to read it and figure out what it's doing. Like What Did you have to find the thing to stab your finger? Oh, you were too slow it then it like, shut it back down. Now you're at the mains running right attack. So

George Kennedy  31:29  
in light of all these things that I'm banging on about, there ain't one feature that Subaru does that I really liked. And it's part of the eyesight suite of driver assistance features so I do like how Subaru makes eyesight standard on almost every car they do. So you're like the 85th right? Or the BRC Excuse me. One feature they have is the whole if you are at a stoplight, and the car in front of you pulls away and you don't respond or gives you a little like Blip. They look you can't wait Change the behavior of human beings. All right, we're going to look at our phones. I'm sorry, okay. People are gonna look at their phones or, or Toronto, like deal with their kids that are fighting each other, or look for that fry that fell in between the seats, for whatever reason. Yes, I car for whatever reason they're not your car. Right? Yeah. So when the car in front of you bounces and goes ahead and you haven't responded, it'll beep at you after like a second. And that like, kind of saves you from the angry horn honk behind you. And frankly, that's one of the most like realistic, like real reality, like self aware features in any car today.

Dan Roth  32:40  
Yeah, all that stuff is good that I say system was good. It was a little it was a little touchy. But you can also dial it back to some like its default is more cautious so it would beep at me and sort of do a little sort of tapping the brakes automatically. A little more than I thought was necessary. But then again, occasionally I drive aggressive.

Unknown Speaker  33:01  
Would you? Yeah, but the just the interface that that infotainment system is the system itself isn't terrible. It's just they need they need more physical controls and and right they need to consider like, Where are the things you can access and how do you access them and maybe consider like, maybe don't make it time out maybe make it controllable. I fought with that for the whole week I had it and it's a union girls, the rest of the cars great. It's really probably too in the past if there was that system, I would just tell people to go get the bass drum because it would have it but I had to go look it up because there are no press images about it. The base trim every trim of the bass drum has this this green in a base trim. It takes up the same real estate that it's two streams. We're talking like Honda Sam knows what I'm talking about. Like Yeah, double screen like you know most like Oh, do you guys are do with that with the base trim. Okay, we'll have fun with that.

Dan Roth  33:59  
Yeah. That's Yeah. So I you know, it's it's a solid update to the legacy it's a really good car you're just going to have that learning curve and really

George Kennedy  34:07  
good car and I hate to bag on some of these things. Yeah, no,

Dan Roth  34:10  
yeah. Otherwise Yeah, it was it was solid so if you if you'd like to bruise it's gonna like to let you know that super itch or whatever,

George Kennedy  34:21  
it drives a lot better than some of the SDV like you almost forget after driving foresters in a sense that like a Subaru sedan can be this refined and corners and unpacking and all that

Dan Roth  34:33  
stuff the ride handling balance the way everything sort of works together the steering, weight and torque is it like all of that stuff is perfect the chassis guys get a gold star. And And And honestly, it looks good. It's easy to get in and out of its comfortable like all all that stuff that makes it a Subaru, that's, that's all there. So they got some work to do on their new infotainment system. So

George Kennedy  34:55  
we're sure we'll look I didn't do any of the homework on any of the topics that you guys are about to talk to in a minute. So I'm going to leave you now with the yellow cars, and I'll check with you guys soon. All right.

Unknown Speaker  35:05  
If they're looking for you, where do they find you? Yeah,

George Kennedy  35:08  
you can find our legacy review on CarGurus. We're doing some other articles about car culture on Boston calm and then I do some other top advice for us things or report every day. Thanks, George. Hey, thanks a lot, guys.

Dan Roth  35:24  
It's been a very electric a few days. The Volvo XC 40 recharge came out and that's sort of their, their first foray into a fully electric vehicle from far other than the pole star. But yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  35:40  
it's the first it's the first Volvo branded production electric vehicle. They actually did something earlier in the decade I think, just in Europe, only they did some small number of vif I think v 40. Electric. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But you know, it was never really a regular production model. But So this is the first regular production. Volvo branded EV, you know, and it's, it's using the same platform as the, that's the pole star too. But, you know, obviously a different form factor, you know, it's it, it looks like the XC 40 that we, that we're all familiar with. And it you know, it's got the battery under the floor like everybody else and lots of other changes too.

Dan Roth  36:24  
Yeah, so and it introduces recharges Volvo's electric brand now, so anything fully electric from Volvo is going to, I think I think they're also

Sam Abuelsamid  36:32  
using it on their plug in hybrid. Okay, I think it's anything with a plug is going to get branded as recharge.

Dan Roth  36:39  
Oh, I get it now. Okay, I thought it was just a fully electric. Okay. And so but did they basically put the XC 40 top hat on top of a completely new architecture or did they

Sam Abuelsamid  36:52  
post are two it's a heavily modified version of the What is it? They're free SLA is a big one. Forget what the smaller the compact one is called. But it's it's a it's a significantly modified version of the compact platform that is used to the XC 40. Also the the Lincoln co cars from from jeely as well as the pole star two.

Dan Roth  37:19  
Yeah. Which I just a normal driving form like I thought that was that's a really good starting point, quite honestly. So yeah, I think Volvo is always over the last 15 years they've been kind of on the forefront of committing to environmental stewardship. And this is this is the next step of all, I think is they figured out where they're going to take the brand now.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:44  
Yeah, you know, during the the press event earlier this week, Hakan Samuelson, the CEO, talked about, you know, getting to 50% ev by 2025. Going forward, they're going to be introducing the new electric the Every year, between now and 2025, and there will be plugin versions of every vehicle that they offer going forward. So, you know, they already have plugins, variants of many of their models, including, you know, all the 90 series models are all available as a plug in hybrid, the 60s, the XC 60. And I think the V 60 or availables plugins, I'm not sure about the S 60. So, you know, this is continuing the trend that they already started. And even the non plugin ones, you know, from 2020 onwards, are going to have at least a 48 volt mild hybrid system as standard equipment, you know, so everything is going to be electrified to some degree or another.

Dan Roth  38:44  
Right. Well, that's that was sort of a thing that they came out and said not too long ago that they had made that masterful release of information that was kind of already out there. was like yes, everything going forward is going to be electrified in some way and people took it to mean like every Volvo is going to be an electric car, which is

Sam Abuelsamid  39:05  
not actually the reason why everybody took it that way is because the headline of that press release said that Volvo is going all electric. Right? Yes, that's what the press release actually said. All electric it didn't say electrified. It said all electric, which was a complete misrepresentation of what they were actually doing.

Dan Roth  39:23  
I made it was in the PR world. That's obfuscation?

Sam Abuelsamid  39:27  
No, that's called a lie. Okay,

Dan Roth  39:31  
all right. I'm trying I'm trying to give him a break because I liked

Sam Abuelsamid  39:36  
when I when I worked on the PR side, that was the sort of thing that you know, I would very loudly complain about in editorial meetings and whenever anybody tried to do something like that, I said, you cannot say that it's not true. Yeah, and that's that's fair. Fortunately for me, I'm no longer in that position.

Dan Roth  39:51  
Right and there there did continue to lie.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:57  
Take away from the car. Yeah,

Dan Roth  39:59  
yeah, they're good. car itself is it this is the thing that was introduced. The most interesting to me was like they didn't just make it sort of mediocre electric powertrain. It's got 400 horsepower and fleet even more torque, like 442 pound feet of torque. So this is probably the quickest xc 40 you're ever going to see. And like it chart it'll charged 80% in about 40 minutes on a fast charger so that's that's pretty good

Sam Abuelsamid  40:28  
50 kilowatt charging same as the Audi e Tron.

Dan Roth  40:31  
And they're there w LTP number sounds really good. But it's okay. It's not right. Well, that's the thing like they get it to say 400 kilometers on the W LTP. Which that you know, 400 is a nice round number and that's that's what I mean it just like it sounds good. But then when you when you convert it and you sort of lower your expectations for what it's going to be on the EPA, do you think this is going to? It's gonna come down to maybe just about 200 miles, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  40:57  
Yeah, it'll it'll probably be right around 200 Which is, you know, again, similar. You know, the Audi e Tron, you know, is also rated at 400 on the W LTP. You know, and it's like tool for on the EPA. So it'll, it'll probably be somewhere right around there, you know, right around 200, or just a little bit more on the EPA cycle when it comes out next year.

Dan Roth  41:18  
So it's not I mean, there's certainly plenty,

Sam Abuelsamid  41:21  
you know, Volvo, you know, because this is a smaller vehicle Volvo achieves that same range as the each one with a significantly smaller battery, they're doing it with a 78 kilowatt hour battery, versus the 9095 kilowatt hour unit in the in the Audi

Dan Roth  41:37  
was just less disappointing that it's getting that kind of,

Sam Abuelsamid  41:40  
it's more it's more efficient, more efficient than the Audi, which you would expect it to be since it's smaller.

Dan Roth  41:45  
Yeah, well, and the Audi to like the thing about the Audi is that initial disappointment seems to have been tempered by the fact that like that performance is virtually guaranteed no matter what you're doing.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:55  
Yes. Yeah, it's, you know, unlike certain other EV companies, You are you're actually highly likely to actually beat the EPA label numbers with the Audi e Tron, as opposed to fall short of them.

Dan Roth  42:08  
Yeah. And like that other AV company, the XC 40 is going to be able to do over the air software updates and stuff. So they're there. They're getting it set for further sort of platform, sort of upping the tech from from the kind of old line automaker that Gobbo has been sort of a member of that, that class. And now we're seeing this shift where they're trying to do the things that others have done, but less, maybe less carefully. Everybody's getting to the act now. And so it's going to improve that sort of execution, I think, right

Sam Abuelsamid  42:45  
and like a full star to the XC 40 is also getting the new Android automotive powered infotainment system. So it's the same system that's going to be in the Pollstar. So it's, you know, it's running Android. Underneath, it'll have a unique Volvo interface to it. But it'll, it'll be it'll have Google services in there. So you'll have Google Assistant for the voice recognition, Google Maps, access to the Google Play Store, you know, with with availability of automotive related apps that you can download and run right on the the the system, so you don't have to use you don't have to have your phone plugged in to use the apps. And what else? Oh, yes. Is this is replacing or you know, it's their next generation of their, their census system. So it's a it's a different interface from what's in census today, which is

Dan Roth  43:39  
given Rebecca's troubles with it. Well, as you know, you and I have complained about it, and to this day, I feel it's probably a good thing, Mike. Well, we'll get to try it out and see how much we like it in practice.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:51  
Yeah, absolutely. I'm looking forward to driving this one. You know, we like I like the standard xc 40 and this should be an interesting change

Dan Roth  43:59  
and better As an EV because it's just going to have that that sort of power delivery that establishes can feel always ready, which is going to be a little quieter. So it's just gonna be the strong strong silent type so the next thing we can we can sort of have ease and alternative propulsion other other alternative propulsion technology fight each other. Be you wrote up the the Toyota marae your order performs just the introduction of the second generation of the marae fuel cell vehicle, which looks fantastic and shifts to rear wheel drive. So I'm all set. They can bring this tomorrow. I would like that.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:41  
Yeah. So you know, the, the original Mariah was, you know, it wasn't the first production fuel cell vehicle, you know, that was, you know, the Honda sex clarity. But, you know, over the course of about four years of production, I think Honda only made about 250 or so clarity whereas Morocco was the first really volume production fuel cell vehicle, and you know, they sold them sold about, I think to date that thing is like about nine or 10,000 of them globally, including Japan and here in the US and in Europe. But the Mirage unfortunately was how shall I put this it was ugly, downright, frankly didn't drive very well either. You know, it, it drove it drove a lot like previous generation Prius, which you know, its platform was based on which means that it was not free fun to drive. It was reasonably collect but it was not very fun to drive. This new Mariah is on a on a new platform. That is it's a rear wheel drive platform. It's also significantly larger than the current Marie, this thing. This new one is about the same size as an Avalon Which, you know, makes it a big car, which means that it's unlikely to go down significantly in price from the, I think 56 or $57,000 price point of the current Murray. But there, you know, it's going to have substantial like 30% more range to it, it already had pretty good range was already over a 300 mile range. But you know, so it should be approaching 400 miles of range. And, and should be a lot more interesting to drive and certainly a lot more pleasant to look at than the old one.

Dan Roth  46:32  
So it's going to be

I know like in Southern California now. This is this is not so much of an issue. You can have the fuel cell vehicle you can fill up with hydrogen, it's it maybe it's a little harder to get but it's there. I don't I don't know that. That's easy up here in the northeast. I do see some clarity. I think from time to time, those are the ones that have

Sam Abuelsamid  46:56  
those are going to be the that's going to be the plug in hybrid clarity. Not the Okay, he's only available in California.

Dan Roth  47:03  
Right? Okay that because that was my sub clarity and traffic and I was like how are they fueling that? Yep. Right

Sam Abuelsamid  47:08  
right now there's about 40 fuel hydrogen stations in California. And that's it. Yeah. For for a publicly accessible stations. You know, the clarity is available in three versions, the fuel cell, a plug in hybrid, and the battery electric version, which has a ridiculously short range of like 85 miles. But they so the ones you're probably the ones you're seeing are, are almost certainly the plug in hybrid. Yeah,

Dan Roth  47:34  
because that's what they've got to be. So again, though, like so the new Mariah does look good. And it's it, they went through all the time and trouble and expense to create this new version. That seems like it's only only going to work in like one small geographic area.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:52  
While they're, they're supposed to start opening some hydrogen stations in the northeast as well, in the next year or so. So it by the Time the MRI arrives later next year, there should be. It may may well be available in the northeast and New England and New York and New Jersey. Because there's supposed to open some some infrastructure there.

Dan Roth  48:13  
That would be good because we have epic gridlock here.

It might be nice to not contribute so much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. I mean it it does make me wonder what drove the changes, like were customers asking for something that's more like an LS and like a Prius, you know, like, it was it was a real surprise to see from

Sam Abuelsamid  48:37  
from what I've been told the original Mariah It was originally intended to be Alexis. It was supposed to be branded as Alexis not as a Toyota. And somewhere along the line, they decided they changed their mind decided to call it a Toyota. And, you know, mainly because of the pricing. You know, even as Alexis you know, I still don't think that the styling would have fit very well as Alexis either Yeah, this time they decided to, you know, just make it a Toyota, it's it's probably going to almost certainly going to be, you know, a premium. It'll be Toyota's flagship, you know, probably above the, the Avalon. And, you know, I think it's not necessarily clear, you know, who the the target market is for this, you know, I think, you know, some, you know, I think anybody that is a big Tesla fan is probably not going to be interested in this. But, you know, there, I think that there, there are some people who liked the idea of a fuel cell vehicle and like to have, you know, a big stylish, you know, premium sedan, you know, that that happens to be electric and has significant range. So, you know, I think, if you compare this to, you know, say something, you know, like the lucid air, you know, which is, you know, kind of a similar size, you know, that's, you know, that's a 400 mile EV that are supposed to be a 400 mile EP that you know, it's going to start at 100 thousand dollars. My guess is that this one will probably start, you know, in the low 50s. You know, so probably in the same price range as the current Murray. But it'll be it's a it's a design that I think people will be much more inclined to pay $50,000 for then then for the current generation car.

Dan Roth  50:17  
Yeah, I wouldn't I mean, to look at the current generation prior and kind of like no dollars, no, no dollars will be exchanged for that. But it's, it's also curious to me that the toad is continues to invest in hydrogen. They, they're one of the few I think that it's really, we super visibly doing it and it's almost like setting your bets

Sam Abuelsamid  50:40  
right now. It's mainly Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda and GM, that are investing significantly in fuel cell technology. They are they are the primary ones and and BMW has a relationship with Toyota. And they are they have said that they're planning to introduce some fuel cell vehicles in the Early 2020s based on toy it is fuel cell technology.

Dan Roth  51:03  
So why that dichotomy like everybody's moving towards the VC VC started to talk about town but there's still work keep going on

Sam Abuelsamid  51:11  
the fuel cell vehicles are electric, they just, they don't they're not storing the energy in a battery they're storing hydrogen is the energy carrier. And hydrogen going through a fuel cell mixing with it mixing with oxygen is producing electricity and water. So the drive train the power train for this is exactly the same as for any other EV Yeah, it's got an electric motor, it's got power electronics even has a battery but you know, it's a smaller battery like a hybrid size battery to do energy recovery, you know, to do regenerative braking. And, you know, to fill you know, cut off some of the peaks. Fuel cells work better, you know, in steady state mode and doing transients So, the battery helps with that. You know, for larger Vehicles, you know, as you get into larger, heavier vehicles, fuel cells actually make a lot of sets, you know, because you can pack more energy into a smaller lighter package, then with a battery big enough to give you the kind of range you want with a bigger, heavier vehicle. So the larger the vehicle, the more sense fuel cells make. And you know, so in addition to the Mirage, you know, one of the things that toilet has been working on over the last several years is fuel cell trucks. Heavy, heavy, you know, a class eight trucks, and they've been testing a couple of fuel cell powered peterbilts cameras, whichever one it was at the Port of Long Beach for a couple of years now. And they're currently they currently have a partnership with I think it's Peter bill. Maybe it's Kenworth. I think they're the same company anyway, I think. Yeah, yeah. With them to build more more of those trucks to build a second generation of those trucks and they're going to operate those in In around the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, and then on day recently did a deal with Cummins because Cummins has been working some working on some electric drive chain technology for heavy duty trucks for class eight trucks. And they showed something last year. And now they're partnering with Hyundai to also utilize Hyundai's fuel cell technology with their electric powertrain technology. So we're going to see Cummins, Cummins and Hyundai powered fuel cell trucks as well. And then there's there's Nicola motors, which is a startup that is doing fuel cell trucks. So when you get into those larger, heavier vehicles, fuel cells actually make a lot more sense. Because you can get, you know, the same amount of range with probably about a quarter of the mass of a battery that would be required for that kind of range.

Dan Roth  53:53  
So, you know, they're they're gonna maybe actually be successful where

certain other Eevee maker continues to release sketches and show off hacked up. Kenworth semis.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:13  
They've got they've got two mules, they've got at least two needles that have been running around and I think periodically getting new paint jobs, which, you know, it sounds sounds, you know, if you're as old as I am, you probably remember there were there was another vehicle startup back in the 1970s and 80s. That had a tendency to do the same thing. Vector aeromotive vector? Yeah. Yeah, I'm talking to Don Sherman and others, you know, who were around in those days, you know, they vector used to regularly show up at their offices, you know, with a prototype, you know, that had it was the same prototype that they you know, every six months or so they would repaint it a different color to make it seem like there was more than one car. This went on for years. Love it.

Dan Roth  55:02  
When they change anything else in the car me,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:04  
now they just repainted it. That's awesome. This was in the days before they could do wraps, you know, which would have been a lot easier. But it would just paint it, repaint it, you know, sometimes it'd be white, sometimes we'd be black, sometimes you'd be red or yellow. And, you know, then just try it out again, you know, and try to raise some more money.

Dan Roth  55:25  
Yeah, that's that one. That's right. Yeah, that guy was kind of a moon.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:28  
Yeah, you could say that. We've talked in the past, you know about, about Tesla, you know, and the fact that they get longer, they seem to get longer range out of their batteries than anybody else. You know, there's a couple of factors there. Some of which, you know, may have to do with, say, some shenanigans as far as how they do their testing. You know, that doing their EPA labeled testing, but we're not going to get into that, but one factor that is absolutely true is that their, their drive trains tend to be more efficient, more energy efficient than most of the other EV makers. And you know, so even regardless of how they're actually doing their measurements, they are definitely getting more miles per kilowatt hour than almost anybody else. And one of the key differences in what Tesla does versus what everybody else is doing up until now has been the power electronics. So, you know, for those who you know, aren't electrically inclined, batteries store energy store electrical energy as direct current and they the output of a battery is always direct current, but DC motors are not as efficient as alternating current motors. All DC motors are significantly more efficient than DC motors. And in an eight in EV especially efficiency is really important because the energy density of a battery is so poor relative to liquid fuel. That it's important to get as many miles out of every kilowatt hour as you as you possibly can. And so they've used AC motors you know the two different types either permanent magnet or or CF AC induction motors. But to go from the battery to that AC motor, you have to go through some power electronics that switches that DC that direct current into alternating current and the power electronics that are used by everybody but Tesla today use regular silicon chips and the more power you put through them, they heat up a lot more. And you know, there's limits on how fast they can switch you know switch switching direction of the current. So, what Tesla has been using on the model three and I think now also on the SPX is silicon carbide chips in their power electronics which gives them an advantage in terms of power or power conversion efficiency. Because when the chips heat up, that that heat energy is coming, that's directly coming from the energy. That's the electricity that's flowing through there. You know, if you if you're giving off heat, then that's less power that's coming out the other side of the power. Let's

Dan Roth  58:15  
not going to the motor. It's not right.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:18  
Yeah. So silicon carbide chips can switch a lot faster and have a lot better thermal properties than just plain old silicon chips. And Bosh is currently building a new fab. You know, Bosh has been making chips for a long time. Most people realize that they're actually one of the bigger chip makers, semiconductor makers, and they're building a new fab in Dresden right now in Germany. But at their existing fab, they are currently doing pilot production of silicon carbide chips and the new Dresden fab. One of these is going to be producing is silicon carbide chips in high volumes. And that's going to be available for production. 2021 they're going to start delivering sample parts to the automakers next year. And hopefully, you know, they we start seeing them switch over to using silicon carbide in their power electronics fairly soon, because that'll help them get more range out of their batteries. And if you can get more range out of the battery, or you know better better energy efficiency there, then you can get the same range with a smaller lighter battery, that's also going to be less costly. So it all helps to drive down the cost of EV going forward if you can get more efficiency.

Dan Roth  59:33  
So how does the

car How does the carbon sort of making the right because that's the car right right they're adding more carbon to the

Sam Abuelsamid  59:42  
product Yeah, in the adding the carbon to the the silicon improves the conductivity of the chip. So the transistors and

Dan Roth  59:50  
this is less resistance then.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:53  
Yeah, basically lowering the resistance. So you generating less heat, the electricity flows through More with more more easily and gets it you know, you're using the the energy where it's needed in the motor not in the power electronics.

Dan Roth  1:00:09  
So and these chips are exist neither icees right there. They're transistors. Yeah. Yeah. So all they do a transistor basically switches it's like, on or off. Yeah, pretty much.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:21  
So yeah, in this case you know it's it's switching it's doing a little more than that, you know switching the current to a different direction but yeah,

Dan Roth  1:00:29  
yeah, there's really right so you've got to make the sine wave out of it versus Yeah, DC the pulse is right. With with AC, it swings, you've got your zero which is no voltage and it swings up for you know, to your peak, and then swings down below zero for your, your low peak and it just sort of goes that that's your house current. That's, that's how we test it. That's all

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:49  
that's, that's what's coming out of the outlets in your house.

Dan Roth  1:00:52  
When you put your fingers on that thing. You plug the lamp and in the dark.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:55  
Yeah, that's how you feel.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:57  
Exactly.

Dan Roth  1:01:00  
Well, I mean, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:02  
an interesting, just little, little tangent there. You know, if you over the years, you know, I've had lots had lots of different clock radios in the house, and they all they never seem to have be able to hold time very well. Yeah, you would think, you know, with modern, you know, especially with courts stuff, courts clocks, you know, they're they're also good at keeping time. But these cheap clock radios that you buy, they, they never seem to hold time very well have achieved a lot. And well, turns out the reason why is because instead of using a quartz crystal in there, they're actually using the the frequency of the alternating current to control the time. So alternating current nominally is supposed to be 60 hertz, you bet that may work in Europe or their grid state stays at 50. Like very reliably. Well, see, that's that's the problem. The grid doesn't our grid does not reliably stay at 60 hertz. So there are using that. But you know, if you're It is actually like 59 hertz or 59 and a half hertz. Over time, your time the accuracy of your clock is going to drift. And you're going to, you know, after a few weeks, you're going to realize you're off by a couple of minutes. So, just just a little side note there.

Dan Roth  1:02:15  
No, I mean, clocks are super important. We used to have to deal with that all the time. And we I mean, we still do, but it's gotten a lot easier now with the with all like getting video and audio digital systems to sync up. You know, because every digital system has, its its own clock reference. So if your clocks are off, things are going to drift out of sync. So some of the studios used to use a Tomic clock clocks, and they would keep them in the oven at the studio. So a consistent temperature because it's it's, it's locked at the decay of the whatever atoms that are electrons. I forget exactly what the clocks were. But there's some Studios in New York that have that they basically had like an atomic clock that they built themselves in in the oven. One of the floors it was the master sink for the whole facility. And it was just the same kind of thing. So, yeah, now we got a little off topic, though.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:07  
Just

Dan Roth  1:03:11  
a very easy episode. But the thing that was most fascinating to me this week, I was listening to auto line this morning. And they it just they're sort of like daily update. And they they announced the Ford fordpass. And like, This, to me is like, here we go. It's it's just another step on top of the electrify America thing, which I also think was was

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:36  
actually it's actually even more than that.

Dan Roth  1:03:37  
Yeah. But it's like, I think with this kind of innovation, whereas we're starting to really see this may be the tipping point where EV, ownership becomes really, really practical and easy, because Ford has done what needs to be done to to a large degree, they've invested big in charge network and infrastructure and they actually

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:03  
know they haven't.

Dan Roth  1:04:04  
Well, they've they've assembled it, I say they've made investment enough to put their name on it, but to do the hard work of integrating all of it so that you as a consumer don't have to. So that's where I'm saying like they've invested like they're, they're making it easy. So that you you

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:20  
Raptors are reducing the friction for reducing the resistance, shall we say? Yes, exactly. TV adopters?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:28  
Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:29  
yeah. So you know, for those not familiar fordpass is Ford's connectivity services platform, a connected vehicle services platform. And, you know, or, you know, there's already a bunch of stuff in you know, they they rebranded their, their telematics service last year to fordpass Connect. And there's the fordpass app that gives you access to a bunch of different things. You know, you can check your vehicle health reports and things like that, and there's various other services, but the latest thing that they're adding, done, we're going to see it in about About three and a half weeks time, roughly. We're going to see it and this is yes, this is the so called Mustang inspired performance electric SUV. Which, you know, that's that's all I can tell you about it at the moment. Other than that, you know, they've said it will have a 300 mile range. And but the, you know, the thing that they announced yesterday in conjunction with electrify America is, you know, this this charging network that what they're doing is within the fordpass app, they're essentially aggregating access to these different charging networks. So like today, you know, you can get the electrify America app, and you can sign up for a plan with them. You know, electrify America chargers are all DC fast chargers. And so, when you use those, you know, it's actually surprisingly costly to use DC fast charging but you can get discount on the permanent rate, you know, if you sign up, so if you pay, if you're going to use it on a regular basis, it's worthwhile to pay, you know, like, you know, five or $10, I think it is a month, and then you get a discount on all the charging you do. Same thing goes for EV go and chargepoint. And, and others, you know, they have similar plans where, you know, you pay a little bit up front, and then you get a discount on on everything you use after that. And so, but that requires you to use all these different apps. So depending on which charging station you go to, you got to open up the right app and make sure you have accounts with all of them. And all this all this nonsense. What Ford is doing is they're pulling a bunch of these together in into their app into the fordpass app. So you'll be able to see, you know, from all these different networks including electrify America and green lots and others to be named. Which one you know where there's a charging station of near you. Yeah. Within within range of you, whether it's available, whether you know whether there's an open plug there to plug into, and then you can go and pay for pay for your charging right through the fordpass app. So you don't have to use all these numerous other apps. And you don't have to pay, you'll get the discounted rates, you know, through the fordpass app, you won't have to pay the you know, different subscription fees to all these different services.

Dan Roth  1:07:27  
Yeah, which is like, I think that's really key. That's, that's important. The way you make it attractive to people is show them how easy it can be because look, this is what you've been dealing with the V's for a long time now. And this is not really anything terribly new. It's just kind of like repackaging, but sometimes that's really important to to, like you said to reduce that friction. And so that's, that's where I think that that and the splash with with Ford actually like making the announcement and putting its brand on it and its weight behind it. You know, it's Seems like a it's right now may play out differently, but it seems like it could be a really kind of a pivotal moment where it becomes easier.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:09  
Yeah, yeah. So to start with, you know, when when the car launches, you know, it'll, it'll have access to more than 12,000 locations with more than 35,000 plugs to plug in. And you know that they in the release that they put out yesterday, you know, they also revealed a couple of other tidbits about the this SUV, it's going to support hundred and 50 kilowatt charging. Same as the Audi e Tron and the Volvo XC 40, which will give you 47 miles of range in 10 minutes. They can reconfirm that it'll have 300 mile range. And since this isn't a European car, that's not that's, you know, that's what the expected range on EPA cycle, not on the W LTP. And what else I think previously, they've also said that, you know, the This vehicles going to have, it's gonna have over the air update capability. So, you know, this thing's going to be available in 2020. It's being built at Ford's kwantlen Mexico plant where they currently built or they have previously built the Fiesta. And they're retooling that plant right now to to build this new EP.

Dan Roth  1:09:20  
So it's a brand new day, which is sounds like something that they would say in their, their marketing. But yeah, I'm, I'm curious. I'm excited. I think it's a really good move and you're moving between Ford and GM. I almost feel like Ford has their strategy. So a little little further along, and maybe a little better worked out, but maybe there's just, you know, afterglow

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:45  
right now. You know, I think, you know, at the moment, it looks like, you know, not not rushing to be the first to market has given them an opportunity to think about, okay, what's the right kind of vehicle what, you know, what are the specs that we need, you know, to you know, that's going to be be appealing to customers and you know this this thing is not going to be as affordable as you know San Nissan LEAF for a bolt or a Kia Nero Evie. But you know they may have an easier time selling it in because of the nature of the type of vehicle it is. And this is going to be this is this is actually a vehicle It's going to be a very interesting competitor to the Tesla Model why

Unknown Speaker  1:10:27  
you think the bottle is actually going to get here? We'll see.

Dan Roth  1:10:33  
Okay, I remain skeptical

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:34  
considering how you know not very different it is from the model three.

Dan Roth  1:10:39  
Yeah, the thing is like I kind of don't really care about back models. Great. Yeah.

Well, again, that's a bag and Tesla. I'm just like, I like how they they've pushed the market. This is because of test. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:54  
Yeah. If it wasn't for Tesla, this vehicle and many others probably wouldn't exist.

Dan Roth  1:10:59  
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, you know, but that's I saw just like bask in our electric glory. I think this this will be really good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:09  
One last thing before before we go, you know, while we've been recording this, something popped up in my Twitter feed rotor support that an electric Hummer could be part of GM moving EV trucks. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, yesterday, or I guess Wednesday night, GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement for a new contract and you know, the the union is getting ready to do the ratification votes. And part of that agreement is that GM is going to retool the Detroit Hamtramck plant Detroit Hamtramck plant, to the tune of $3 billion to build an electric electric trucks and SUVs and it's not quite clear. You know what, that $3 billion, you know, How much of that is for retooling? It doesn't seem like it should be that much more like maybe a billion to the plant. So they're probably including the product development costs in there. But there's been some speculation for a while that GM might revive the Hummer brand. And so, you know, there's a possibility that this electric truck could be branded as a Hummer, which would be ironic given that, you know, the Hummer, you know, before it was killed off a decade ago, you know, it was sort of the the anti green vehicle you know, it was it was the whipping boy for everybody promoting green transportation.

Dan Roth  1:12:38  
Right Well, and how much it seems like kind of an odd name for an EV like it's going to be whiner because the ease of wine they don't home. I guess they have a

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:48  
lot of freebies, you know, have more of a home to them. But since EBS or you know, are going to have to have artificial sound now. You know, when they're driving around at lower speeds, you know, to alert pedestrians, you know, you could certainly make it home. That's true. That's true.

Dan Roth  1:13:05  
I think this is a bad idea. I think it's a good way to just torch about a billion dollars to establish a brand that they're like reestablish over just just making it, make it a Chevy, and be done with it. If you want to make an electric truck, put in your volume brand, and sell as many of them as possible, don't waste time, energy and money getting distracted. Dude, that would be my advice to them.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:30  
You know, that's, that's what Ford is planning to do with the F 150. So,

Dan Roth  1:13:33  
yeah, that makes sense. You're not you're not splitting the market that way and you're not you you hurt yourself when you try that and to me may sound good, but I I think too, like there's less of that Prius effect now than there was in the past where you needed to have a separate very distinct product for the electrified car. I don't think that's really the case anymore. Like we see the same, you know, you see the BMWs that are in the plugin version of x five is basically the same exact thing as next five. It's just, you know, there's so this old right alongside each other. As I'm saying, like and Baba, we just talked about the XC 40. So, you know, it keeps that consistency. You know what you're getting you just, it's like, in the days, I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:15  
nowadays using each Ron, Mercedes using EQ for their electrified vehicles. And yeah, I think it makes sense to keep it part of the mainstream.

Dan Roth  1:14:25  
Yeah. So please don't do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:32  
You having said that means that that's exactly what they're going to do.

Dan Roth  1:14:34  
Yeah. Well, they don't listen to me. They have nobody has made me in charge of a car company or branding or anything or any of that. But really, I think they could have great success. If they listen to all of us. You know, I think we are the sensible ones here in the industry, we get to deal with their product and then try to unravel their decisions as we try to actually use the thing that they designed. So it'll all be You find just please just make make the movies and don't cost yourself money that you can't afford. Yeah. Oh, and you know, before we go actually I wanted to talk a little bit I wanted to recount my experience because I I dropped my Android phone and shattered the face of it shattered the screen. And so because I find it offensive to spend too much money on phones, I cross graded to an iPhone eight, and I was really excited. Now I wasn't I was moderately interested in using Apple CarPlay. So I kind of say after a little bit of trying, I don't like it when you're on Android Auto so is that like customizable? Can you adjust sort of No, it's just it is what it is.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:51  
It is what it is. And, you know, I you know I have I have an older iPhone that I keep around for testing purposes. You know, just just to try out, you know, as updates come out to Apple CarPlay and evaluate it. And yeah, I mean, I personally prefer Android Auto to CarPlay, especially the new version of Android Auto. They recently a few months ago, they totally revamped the interface and works works even works a lot better now. But, you know, Android, you know, Google's voice recognition works so much better than Siri. You know, it just it does what I want it to do.

Dan Roth  1:16:30  
Well, so that's the sort of biggest sticking point is I don't want to deal with Siri. And you can't really get anything out of CarPlay if you don't have Siri enabled. And then when you have Siri enabled, she starts talking to you, when you don't want her to talk to you. Like I'll do a text message and they'll tell me

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:47  
Siri is verbose. And and I noticed you used the term she there, which is something I've always been troubled by referring to any of these voice assistance, you know, either as a she or he, you know, we're going Whichever voice you choose, you know, it's, it's it's a program, it's an IT,

Dan Roth  1:17:05  
right. But it's so the choice of it being a woman's voice is this odd little bit of ingrained sexism right? Where the, the the woman, electronic servant, or the electronic servant is a woman like isn't that seem like that that that also bars or or maybe

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:21  
it's that you know that they they think and we'll have to get Rebecca and on this next time but you know maybe I think part of it is the feeling that men are more likely to listen to a woman's voice you know when traffic directions and things like that, then another another man's voice isn't that

Dan Roth  1:17:42  
the classic trope though, where the guy won't listen to his wife won't take direct you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:46  
That's the thing. It's not it's not his wife.

Dan Roth  1:17:48  
Oh, that's true. That's I you know, I don't know. I think you you may be onto something

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:53  
but but regardless of you know what the voice sounds like just the idea of referring to You know a digital voice recognition system as he she or whatever. Yeah, it's an it it's an it's an algorithm.

Dan Roth  1:18:08  
Yes. But we're we're humans. We're prone to anthropomorphize we do it our pets we do it to our cars like it's just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:17  
bets have genders. That's, that's true.

Dan Roth  1:18:19  
I mean, nowadays.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:22  
Yeah. But but to your to your original point, theory theory is definitely more verbose than, you know. And, you know, it gives it tries to be funny and, and, you know, give you some smartass remarks sometimes, and I just find it cloying.

Dan Roth  1:18:40  
Yeah, I was not I'm not that impressed. I'm disappointed that I can't make the thing do what I want the thing to do. Like I have to, and you know, I can't use the phone functions if I'm on CarPlay because Syria is disabled, but I can pick up the phone and use it on the like, it seems totally against what you would want that system to be doing like it's supposed to be a safety advanced. But if I don't have Siri enabled, I have to pick up the phone and use the phone to dial call, which is backwards so I defaulted back to Bluetooth and I can do all the things that I want to do through the infotainment system that's in the cars with Bluetooth and it's like I can make calls I can get to my my podcast apps and stuff that way and it's just it's better. So if you want an

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:31  
Android Auto I've still got that Nokia.

Dan Roth  1:19:34  
I went through the pain to transfer thing to to Apple iCloud. So I mean I had an iCloud account but it's just yeah, I need to settle down. I was angry the first couple days. Because there's no like there's no back button I don't like the apple interface there's the UI is is it may have been really streamlined and refined at one point, but now there's there's extra wasted motion. I have to click on stuff to get the interface buttons do the thing that I want to do where You know, on the Android I had a back button. So I can the back

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:03  
buttons gone,

Dan Roth  1:20:04  
always it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:06  
But it actually I think it actually works really well because you sweep in from the side to go back. And so it's so easy to use it one handed because I can I can do that that swipe gesture with my thumb and go back once trying to reach across.

Dan Roth  1:20:20  
Maybe I'm the problem. Maybe I just I don't understand. Oh, I just that just might be Yeah, it could be Oh, well. You know what we should have people weigh in on that whether or not I am the problem and then we can leave the podcast at that the week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:31  
Let us know if Dan is the problem.

Dan Roth  1:20:35  
All right, thanks. All right. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai